1.Mark Jennens complained to the
Independent Press Standards Organisation that The Sun breached Clause 1
(Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “Spud row
son ‘killer’”, published on 14 July 2017.

2.The
complainant said that the headline to the article had given the inaccurate
impression that he had killed his mother. He had appeared in court charged with her
murder, but he had been found not guilty. He had alerted the newspaper to the
outcome of the case, but it had failed to respond or to report it for two and a
half weeks.

Relevant
Code provisions

3.Clause
1 (Accuracy)

i) The
Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted
information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.

ii) A
significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected,
promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology
published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the
regulator.

Mediated outcome

4.The
complaint was not resolved through direct correspondence between the parties.
IPSO therefore began an investigation into the matter.

5.The newspaper said
that it had accurately reported the original court proceedings. It considered
that when a newspaper is made aware of the outcome of court proceedings, by a
defendant or otherwise, it may be appropriate to publish an update to keep
readers informed of the status of the case. In
this instance, the complainant’s email about the outcome of the
trial had been overlooked in error. To resolve the complaint, it updated the
article and offered to write a letter to the complainant apologising for the delay.

6.The
complainant accepted the newspaper’s offer as a resolution to his complaint.

7.As the complaint was successfully mediated, the
Complaints Committee did not make a determination as to whether there had been
any breach of the Code.